Wind & Whales

WEATHER: Winds 18 knots, building to 20-25 knots into tomorrow. Seas WNW clocking to NNW. While conditions strengthen, they are favorable. We don’t expect crews to make much W’ly progress in the next 24hrs, but in any case all rowers need to make some 360 nautical miles of southing in order to get to Oahu, so they might as well take advantage of the push south now!

Team Ocean Hearts is having a whale of a time out on the Pacific. Our support yacht Nomad visited the boat ‘Roosevelt’ at approximately 0605 this morning at a location of 34 35 N 123 00 W. Captain Thom chatted with Liz who was in good spirits and happy to see the support yacht. Pat was sleeping at the time. Liz reported that a whale nudged the stern last night and knocked the rudder, which popped the tiller arm off. The crafty ladies did a quick fix and got the arm back together after circling for a while. The whale-attracting crew forged on and remain in first place in all pairs, 1st place in the Open Pairs as well as fourth place for all boats.

Nomad also checked in with Endurance Limits USA at a position of 36 22 N 122 56 W who were all smiles and stated that everything was good. If you are following along via the YB Tracker, you may notice that a few boats like Endurance Limits USA and Row Aloha, still appear quite far north and close to the rhum line (the red line on the tracker that is the most direct route from Monterey to Waikiki). We have been informed that Endurance Limits USA “has a plan” – we don’t know what that is and are staying tuned to see what they might be up to in this weather.

Row Aloha also has a plan, which today involved a few zigzags you may have seen on the YB Tracker page. This was because they had deployed their sea anchor. With the forecast for strong winds and building seas from tonight through until the early part of next week, crews are in for a fun sleigh ride. “We have been advising crews to run SW / S with the wind and enjoy the surfing conditions. While this isn’t the most direct route to Hawaii, it will be the fastest,” said race Safety Officer Lia Ditton.

The final pairs team we will report on today is Sons of the Pacific who have reported that they are struggling to acclimatize a bit more than they had expected. They are doing all the right things on board like making lots of water, and utilizing the items they have on board to make needed fixes. Their double action seat got a bit stiff in the sun, so they lubed the axels with Vaseline – one of only may uses of petroleum jelly.

In our teams of Four, today we have a report from team Endurance Limits. We were aware that the team has been down to three men since the start. Matt Knight has been a bit seasick since heading out onto the Pacific. “It’s been a hard slog fighting against the currents” reported Skipper Darren Clawson. There have been lots of messages of encouragement, well wishes and “get well soon, Matt” posts from family, friends and supporters of Endurance Limits. Even being a man down for a bit, they are still in 2nd place overall and to quote their supporters “we can all agree that’s pretty incredible!”

Matt and the crew have been in touch with our medical consultants who reported that his seasickness started 6-8 hours after starting the race. The report also stated he “has been seasick for approximately 30 hrs. Initially vomiting, now settling. Currently rowing again, generally improved. Is eating and drinking.” All of these are good things to know and we are thrilled to hear he is on the road to recovery and back at the oars.